


it's ok to feel unbearably lost

by micahandthebees



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Gen, Harry and Luna go on a Eurotrip, Harry gets help, Harry potter has experienced major trauma and deadass no one was like get help? not my canon, Hurt/Comfort, I never write this sort of thing, Panic Attacks, Post-War, discussions of trauma, mrs weasley as harry's surrogate mum
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-07
Updated: 2019-11-07
Packaged: 2021-01-24 20:20:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21344137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/micahandthebees/pseuds/micahandthebees
Summary: "So what are you going to do next?"He heaved a great sigh. "I have no clue." he said. "The prophecy's been completed. There's no great plan for me anymore. I don't have a home anymore and I don't know who I am anymore either. I've spent my whole life with someone trying to kill me. I'm the Boy who Lived and I've done that twice now. I'm wandering around numb or crying and I have no idea what I'm supposed to do now there's no purpose for me anymore." His words hung in the air. He watched the trees wave in the gentle wind._________Harry Potter now has no home, no family and no purpose. Hand in hand with Luna, he goes searching across the world to find what he lost.
Relationships: Harry Potter & Ginny Weasley, Harry Potter & Molly Weasley, Hermione Granger & Harry Potter & Ron Weasley, Luna Lovegood & Harry Potter
Comments: 3
Kudos: 11





	it's ok to feel unbearably lost

**Author's Note:**

> ok deadass harry potter has suffered so much and like has full on ptsd in book 5 and no one was like bruh maybe u should see someone?? thats unacceptable so im writing a harry potter learns to heal fic as an outlet for my emotions and i am sorry u all have to read it
> 
> There are no relationships bc this is about friends! helping! friends! let me know if u find an à bc my phone does it automatically also I love you lets get emo
> 
> TW: theres a lot of panic attacks and a LOT of crying but its only really for this chap also i vaguely reference racism
> 
> Update 24/11/2019: sorry if u wanna read c2 i have to wait to be depressed again before i can write it

The dust settled and Harry Potter withdrew from society.

\--------

He's perched on top of a hill in the north of Germany breathing in the fresh spring air when Luna wanders back over to him.

"Ready to go?" 

"Oh yes. I didn't find any Tuperburra colonies but I'm sure the have just migrated onwards. They are very skittish, you know." Luna says dreamily, waving gracefully towards the surrounding fields. He stands and hands her a sandwich from his magically expanded backpack, thankfully kept in a box located near the top of the bag. He's had to go digging between the books and Luna's rock collection before with depressing results. He's learned from his mistakes.

She happily takes her lunch from him, a bizarre mix of fruit loaf and some dark paste they picked up while searching for the Muldjewangk, beings not unlike the merfolk in the Great Lake at Hogwarts, along the Murray River in Australia. She fell in love with the strong smelling stuff and they've travelled back there twice now to get more, the third visit ending with her buying all the stock at the local grocers. 

She grabs his hand and they apparate to their room in the local town, a tiny farming town with one pub that they've rented a room above for à few nights and no magic community at all. Harry doesn't know what he prefers at this point, stares because of who he is from wizards and witches or stares because of how he looks from Muggles. He can pretend the interest from Muggles is just from the huge jagged white scar spreading across his face like lightning in the night sky but he knows that's not just it.

Luna looks quite a sight next to him, dangerously pale and glowing like the moon, her hand contrasting his. Her tan from their stay in the south of Italy faded months ago. His dark skin and hair, with his prominent scar and bright green eyes make him the subject of many whispers as they wander from town to town looking for animals that about half of which don't exist.

It's fine, though. They end up most times with the Muggles, especially when they visit extremely rural towns. The Muggles don't ask him for autographs and try to touch him and if they stumble across a witch protecting a magical site or a wizard studying the local magical creatures or even sometimes a squib who's just really involved in the community, they'll sometimes transfigure his face or throw him under the cloak. 

The room they have is small, one bed and a tiny bathroom. Luna flitters about their room, placing flowers she found in the teapot they brought and adding another nice rock to her collection in Harry's bag while he sits on their bed and watches. Hermione is due to check in soon, making sure he's still alright under the guise of keeping him updated and hearing about what they've found. She's consistent, contacting him through phones, Floo, mail, whatever works for where they are, every Saturday afternoon. To be honest, her updates sometimes are the only reason he knows what day of the week it is. He cancelled his subscriptions to the Daily Prophet and they don't carry a radio with them. Sometimes her letters are his only contact with the outside world. 

He gets letters and packages from the rest of his friends sporadically, Mrs Weasley the worst of them all. Ron will send him letters every now and then when he's not too busy with the shop and finishing school. Ginny and Neville call Luna all the time and he ends up laughing along with them and Mrs Weasley, ever the realist about what they might be eating on their travels, sends an enormous care package that requires two owls to carry every month or so. He feels lighter when he hears from his friends, the blanket of their love and care a gentle weight on his shoulders, warm and comforting and nothing compared to the weight of the world he knowingly carried since he was 11.

He misses his friends but not enough to go back yet.

\----------

The dust settled and Harry Potter withdrew from society.

They held the funerals for the fallen, names clearly enunciated into the morning light. So many asked him to say something, sometimes for people he never even knew. What felt like thousands of grieving people hugged him, shook his hand, thanked him for ending it all, while he stood there, numb to the feeling. It's been 4 days and every night he takes a sleeping draught Hermoine bought in bulk from Hogsmeade. She quietly places her hands on his when she spies them shaking in his lap and Ron always sits next to him, thigh pressed firmly against his, to ground Harry or himself, Harry doesn't know. Every time he closes his eyes he is reminded of one horrible fact.

He, along with hundreds of others, died and only he came back. 

He doesn't see their bodies, when he closes his eyes. Instead he sees the black expanse, the absence of light and life. The cold arms of Death coming to claim him finally, once and for all. No faces, no sounds. Just falling into the abyss, his body gone and his consciousness forever trapped in the dark. 

That first night they all slept in the common room, Harry sandwiched between Ginny and Ron, their deep breaths grounding him, tying him to the ledge. He didn't fall the first night, just watched from the edge the black stretch out before him. Ginny was dead asleep from the second her head hit the pillows stolen from all the dormitories but Ron had known he hadn't slept from his spot stretched against his side. Which is how Hermione later knew. 

He was scared to sleep. Hermione slipped the draught into his pumpkin juice after he stayed awake for two days. She offered it the second night but nothing could be worse than reliving the end. She didn't understand but she tried and he appreciates that. 

Following the funerals he ran, sprinting down the corridors he had once loved so dearly, his escape from the horrors of his childhood. It felt like it wasn't his life. He always used to brush it off, said that other people had it worse. They still do, because he's here and they're not, and that's the hard truth.

He ended up at the top of one of the smaller towers, one of the ones they used more as decoration than for function. The lake stretched for miles and miles in front of him towards the horizon, framed by enormous snow capped mountains, peeking in through the tiny slit windows, barely wide enough to fit an arm through, and he never felt smaller. The tiny circular room trapped him, the light of the setting sun flashed in his eyes. His hands were shaking so he gripped the railing of the nearby stairs and leans on the rough stone wall. His breathing is no better this high up and the climb didn't help, the cold spring air seeping in and freezing his bones even more than they were on the ground. He dropped to the floor and tucked his hands under his arms, close to his chest. He can't see the shaking if they can't move.

It was Ron who found him there, pale and curled on the floor maybe an hour later. They may not talk as much or as deeply as he would with Hermione or maybe Ginny and Luna, but there's no one who knows him as well as his best friend. He faded in and out of awareness as Ron levitated him down stairs, warmth spreading to his fingers and toes, something he suspects was Hermione's handiwork. 

He woke in his old bed to a small crowd whispering nearby. The sun was rising in the distance, the visible sky he could see through the window next to him the soft orange of the breaking dawn. 

"He shouldn't be…..out of here…..can we" he heard in bits and pieces from the group. They hadn't noticed he had woken yet but suddenly he felt a small hand slip into his and squeeze. He turned to the owner and Luna smiled gently at him. 

"Good morning. The sky is lovely today, don't you think?" she asked him. He didn't answer, instead rolling towards her and curling around her very warm hand. She rubbed her thumb across the scarred words etched into his skin and he felt every movement, tracking the sweep from left to right. 

"He is awake! Everyone out! Out! Right now! Go!" he heard Fleur call from the corner, her thick accented voice reverberating around the dormitory. The room filled with the sounds of shuffling as they filed out, murmuring small greetings to him on their way out. He stared at his and Luna's hand, squeezing tight when she made to leave.

"Alright then." She responded.

"Harry?" he heard Ron ask tentatively.

He stared at his and Luna's hand.

The bed dipped. "Harry can you look at me please?" Hermione placed her hand on his shoulder and the warmth shot through him. It was so cold in the room, why had no one shut the windows? He leaned into her, towards where she was perched on the bed behind him. She was radiating heat and it felt like another blanket. "Harry please look at me." She asked again.

He finally dragged himself from Luna's hands to see Ron, Hermione and Ginny around his bed. Hermione's smile didn't reach her eyes and Ginny's were red and watery. They were going to apparate back to the Burrow in two days to bury Fred with the rest of the generations of Weasleys. 

Another reminder. 

"You right, mate? Gave us a hell of a scare there yesterday." Ron said, breaking the silence. 

Harry nodded, sluggish from the numbness, and turned back to Luna's hand. She's holding him firmly, only his left hand is shaking. 

À sniff reverberates around the room.

"Harry?" 

He jerked in response.

"Harry, I think we should go home."

Home? This is home.

His voice is gravelly with disuse, having barely said anything since they won.

"Where?"

\--------

They had helped him to apparate sidealong to the Burrow. The Burrow was always his home away from home, warmth and happiness embodied. Another thing ripped from him, another thing stolen from him because of a stupid poem someone said years ago. His fingers are so cold. 

He couldn't look at the home, empty and dark, like the building knew what happened. The laughter and joy of the family snuffed out.

He and Fred died, but only he came back. 

He and the Weasleys stand outside for ages, waiting for someone to be brave enough to go in. George had gone straight the store, Percy following to watch and look after him. Harry wasn't able to face George, anyway. Yet another reminder. His hands were shaking. It's uncharacteristically cold for this time of day. 

Eventually, it was Bill who took the first step, linking arms with his mother with a grim smile on his face. One by one, they all made their way inside, with only Harry standing outside in the afternoon sun. Ron and Hermione linger at the door, waiting for him to join them. His legs were frozen. 

Hermione walked over to him and reached for his hand. "Come on," she said, "I'll make you some hot chocolate." His hand stills in her grasp and he can feel his lungs move, taking in the sun-warm air. Where did the chill go?

He follows her into the house, Ron's hand firm on his back and Hermione's fitted into his. He doesn't blink.

\--------

He, Ron and Hermione all slept in Ron's room, his mum and dad focused on far more important issues than their son sharing a bed and room with his friends of varying genders. Ron transfigured the bed to stretch across the space, his skills having vastly improved while they were on the run, and if you had asked Harry a month ago, he would have said how much better if felt that he and Ron could help Hermione and not rely solely on her abilities. Now, he watched the bed expand to over twice the width, enough for three people with space to spare, in a haze. The room is warm but dusty from a lack of occupants. He feels trapped within his own body. Was it even his body now? Or was he just an occupant, ready to leave at any moment.

Ginny appears in the doorway, hair wet and wearing pajamas. She hands Hermione some and they both disappear while he and Ron change themselves, him into an old pair of Ron's winter pajamas and a shirt with a hole in the sleeve seam. Ron changed the intense orange of the room in the holidays before their sixth year to a much calmer grey, but Harry missed the orange now. The colour was so intense he might have felt heat radiating from it. He's staring at the plain wall when Ron walked over and wrapped his arms around his shoulders. 

He's crying. He didn't realise he was. He could feel the tears, feel the heavy choking sobs come out of him, muffled by Ron's jumper. His face hurt, his ribs hurt, he shouldn't be crying this much. Ron had just lost a brother, he had it worse.

There's a body against his back and arms around his middle. He didn't know when the girls came back in but they hold him steady as his knees buckled, the pain of his tightening chest weakening him, each gasping breath forced down constricting airways. He's dying all over again. Death had come knocking, finally realising that he never collected on him. Every blink he saw the station. His fingers cramp gripping someone's shirt as they slid to the floor, limbs everywhere and around him.

"HARRY!" 

The voice was distant, an echo surrounding him, bouncing off the station walls.

"HARRY PLEASE!"

His breath stuttered on every sob, lungs refusing to take in more air. Death had soft hands on his face, pulling him towards the abyss.

"Harry, please, Harry you need to breathe!" Death's gentle fingers wiped under his eyes. Another hand settled over his heart, the touch so sweet and cruel. When would he reach in and rip it out? Harry waited.

"Please, Harry. Please breathe for me." 

The soft hands pinched his face, forcing him to look. Brown hair. Death has brown hair.

Harry died and he came back.

He was surrounded by his friends in a pile on the floor, leaning against Ron's chest, hands clenching the ones Ginny had pressed against his chest. She was molded against him, taking big exaggerated breaths against his back. Hermione's soft hands rested on his face, holding him steady. His back is wet and so is Ron's front, dark patches from where he was leaning. Hermione was crying steadily and he could hear sniffs coming from behind him. 

"I...I…I'm" he stuttered out between inhalations. She leaned forward and pressed her forehead to his. "Match Ginny." She commands and he tried and focused on the movement pressed to his back. In two three, out two three. His lungs stay tight but the air went in and out. 

The station was gone.

They all climbed into the bed with no argument about who was staying or not. They placed him in the middle, Ginny and Hermione on either side and Ron next to Hermione. He felt surrounded and warm.

\---------

When he got up the next day, he'd been asleep for 16 hours. The sun was high in the sky and his friends were in the room, still in their pajamas. Hermione was studying a map while perched on the windowsill in a patch of sunlight and Ron was next to him on the bed, reading a tattered comic book. 

"Morning," said Ron when Harry sat up. "Ginny's popped out to get food for the house but she'll be back soon, she only left about an hour ago." 

Harry frowned. "Couldn't she just summon some?" he said, his tongue feeling less like glue with every word.

Both Ron and Hermione looked at him in surprise. It was the most he had spoken since the first night following his victory, he supposed. Thankfully, neither of them commented.

"We have nothing, no one's been here for a while and she wanted to get out for a bit." Hermione replied. That made sense, he supposed.

"Harry?"

He knew what she was going to ask. You don't spend months on the run with your best friends and not come out of it able to guess exactly what they were thinking. She hesitated, afraid to set him off.

"Just ask, Hermione." He said tightly.

She seemed to gain some courage and steeled herself, looking him firmly in the eye. 

"Mate, what happened?" Ron cut in.

What happened? What happened 5 nights ago in the only place he'd ever called home. What horrific event occurred that left him hyperventilating on his best friend's bedroom floor?

He took a deep breath.

"I, and hundreds of others, died. Only I came back."

The silence in the room was thick on his skin. 

"I was gone. I saw what comes after. I spoke to someone and was given the choice to come back and I took it. I got the choice and about 200 others didn't. I'm the chosen one, the boy who lived at the expense of others."

He got out of bed.

"I died and I alone came back."

He was angry. All those people, Remus, Fred, Tonks, fucking Colin Creevey, kids his ages who shouldn't have been there and shouldn't have fought his battles. Sirius and Dumbledore and his parents and Hedwig and every good thing in his life, gone. Snatched by Death.

"All those people died and I'm here crying because I chose to live. You lost a fucking brother and my hands won't stop shaking! I won and if I close my eyes I see the abyss. Fuck, I saved the world! I saved the world and I can't sleep. I'm so cold and my fingers won't work properly and if I blink Death will come to get me, because he realised he made a mistake letting me go."

"You want to know what happened? We won and it feels like we didn't. We won and it feels like I lost. All those people died, Fred died, and it's my fault." 

He stopped and looked at his friends. 

The temperature dropped.

"Ron," he said, "I'm sorry, I just-" his voice faded out. The look in Ron's eyes, the pity, he shouldn't be looking at him like that. Fred died because of him. 

"Harry…" He started.

"I'm sorry, I'm fine, I'll stop." He said, stumbling out of bed.

"Harry, wait!" 

"I'm fine Hermione!" He called back as he rushed out the room, taking to the stairs at rapid speed. He needed to get out of the house. He could hear them behind him. He needed to get out, his lungs were shrinking. He jumped the last few steps and burst through the kitchen, beelining straight for the door past Charlie lighting the stove with his wand. He didn't even know where his is.

He broke into a run, bare feet flying across the grassy fields surrounding the Burrow. He couldn't breathe, but struggling to breathe because he was running felt better than because he was being selfish. He forced the air into his lungs as he ran, tripping on gnome burrows and stepping in puddles. A pond appeared in the distance and his legs gave out as he reached the edge, sending him to his hands and knees as tears streamed down his face again. He heard them catch up to him.

"What's happening to me?" the reflection says to him, faint in the murky water. 

A hand tugged his shoulder. 

"Harry." 

He sat back on his heels and allowed Hermione to turn him towards her. "What's wrong with me?" he asked.

"Harry… you died." she said, leaning her forehead against his. "You died. Of course you're not ok." 

Pulling away, he rubbed at his eyes furiously, streaking mud across his face, covering parts of his stupid scar. "I should be! I'm lucky! I got to come back! I keep telling myself that but I can't stop crying!" He said. Shame filled his chest.

"Merlin's beard Harry, you've fucking DIED! Regardless if you came back or not, you still died. No one would be ok after that" Ron cut in. "Ron I'm so-" Harry started. "And don't you dare start that shit again with me! I know I've lost a brother, don't keep reminding me that I could have lost my best friend too."

Ron was holding his shoulder tight enough to bruise. He felt tied down, tied to his friend, no danger of floating away forever. 

"Bloody hell, Harry. You're not alright. If you were we'd think it wasn't over and that a piece of that bastard was still stuck in there. And it hurts, more than the fucking Cruciatus could ever, and there's nothing I want more than to just fix it, or to even just hear him call me a git one last time and tell him I love him, but I'm telling you now, Harry. I'm grateful I'm only burying one brother." Ron told him, voice cracking and eyes watering. 

"When we saw you, when we thought… and then you came back! We thought you were just pretending, not that you actually…" Hermione trailed off, hiccupping every few words. 

He caught her hand when it dropped from his face. "I just… every time I close my eyes, you know how people will say on the news and stuff, things like 'When I close my eyes I can see all their faces?' I don't see their faces. I see the black or the train station and I don't know what's worse. Me only seeing nothing or the place I went to where I got to choose to live or the faces of all the people who didn't get to." They were all crying, the three of them sitting in the mud next to the pond. "All I can think is I'm alive and they aren't. I'm alive and I'm being selfish with the time I've got."

"Harry Potter you listen to me right now. You are not being selfish. I've never met anyone who has suffered as much as you. You have lost everything time and time again. You had a fucking awful childhood and have had some maniac try to destroy you for no reason every year since you were 11. 11, Harry. You were a kid! A bit of someone else's SOUL lived in you for 16 years, Harry. If anyone deserves to be selfish, it's you." Hermione all but yelled, arms flying. 

"But-" He tried.

"No buts! You are important too! But not because of some bullshit prophecy! Because you are kind and loyal and caring and you've put up with so much for years on end. I've had enough of it, Harry. It's time you did something selfish."

He sat there, stunned. Ron wiped his face on the back of his hand, the mud covering his freckles. 

"Bloody hell, Hermione. I don't think I've ever heard you swear before." He says with a watery chuckle. The spell was broken and Harry felt his own laugh bubble in his throat, not escaping but still lighter than air.

"I save it for special occasions." Hermione said with a haughty sniff, before giggling herself.

It was uncharacteristically warm for this time of day.

\--------

Mrs Weasley bakes her grief. Every morning they woke to her, in the kitchen, a rolling pin smoothing out dough on the table, dishes washing themselves and her stirring something on the stove with her wand. Since Fred's funeral, she had made so much food that Ginny and Bill went to Ottery St Catchpole to sell what they couldn't eat at the local market. In the week since they buried him, she had made about 300£, which Bill took to convert to galleons.

No one he has ever known has lost a child, except Tonk's mum, perhaps. He and Andromedea had spoken to each other at the Great funerals, but Teddy stayed home and Harry wasn't sure if he was ready for that conversation. Andromedea handled her daughter's death well. "I never in a million years thought I'd outlive them," she had said to Harry. "But when she started working for the Order… I started to prepare, just in case. A mother should never outlive her kids, but I have to keep it together, I have Teddy to look after now."

Watching the Weasley family cope had been the worst. He never considered anything could hurt as much as watching Sirius die until he saw George curled on the ground next to the freshly turned dirt covering his twin. He missed Fred, missed his and George's matching grins before they did something their mother would not be happy with. Missed him apparating behind Harry and Ron to scare them, and playing Quidditch with them in the orchard. Mr Weasley wandered the house in a daze, locking himself in his shed to try and fix his collection of Muggle things while Mrs Weasley levitated food to him through the open window. They both would spend the nights huddled on the couch crying or just being in each other's company. George and Percy hadn't come back after the funeral, instead George went straight back to the store with Percy hot on his trail, promising to keep Bill updated as he chased him out the door. 

Ginny had taken to staying with Harry. She kept him company, helping him climb onto the roof and watch the sunset every evening. He could breathe better with someone holding his hand, keeping him steady, and she needed someone to lean on, so they stayed with each other. He's grateful for her as she plays music from a cheap portable CD player she bought from the town. Muggle radio gets distorted by the protective barriers around the Burrow so she bought a CD while she was there, the first thing she saw. The music surrounded them and filled the silence as she rested her head on his shoulder. 

He saw movement from down below. Mrs Weasley finally had taken a break from her frantic cooking and was standing in their garden, staring at the pond. "I'll be back." Harry muttered to Ginny before slipping out of her grasp and into the house through the nearby window. 

He rushed down the stairs and out into the garden before Mrs Weasley could come back inside. She was still where she was, like a statue watching over the garden. She looked tired and her hair was falling from the bun she had put it in to keep it out of her face. Her front was dusted with flour and there was a streak of what was probably jam on her cheek.

"Mrs Weasley?" he asked quietly as he approached her. She jumped at his voice. 

"Oh! Harry, dear. You surprised me! Merlin, you know better than to sneak up on an old woman!" She exclaimed, eyes down as she brushed her apron.

"You're hardly old, Mrs Weasley." 

"With seven children fully grown, I think I am." She said with a tiny smile that quickly faded. "Or six now, I suppose." 

Quick to stop any more tears, Harry offered his arm to her. "Do you want to sit with me?" He asked.

She sniffed and flashed him a grateful smile, before accepting his arm. He lead them both to the bench on the edge of the garden. They sat together and watch as the sun slowly dipped down towards the horizon. 

The silence was filled with the sounds of birds and trees rustling and the urge to say something, anything, was strong. His hands are shaking.

"Harry, my dear? Is there something you want to say?" She asked him, her voice warm and comforting, like a mother's should be.

"Mrs Weasley… I.." he stuttered out, firmly looking ahead. 

"My dear boy. I know you're struggling. Why have you come out here to me?" 

Again, tears forced their way out and down his face. He took a deep, shuddering breath.

"Mrs Weasley, I'm so sorry." he burst out between sobs.

She turned and opened her arms. "Oh dear. Come here, my boy. My sweet boy, what are you apologising for? We all knew the risks when we signed up." 

Why could he get it together? He was so sick of crying. 

He cried on her shoulders for what felt like hours and her own tears soaked his shirt as she rubbed his back. She smelled warm, like a bakery. 

"What are you thinking?" she finally asked. 

"I just.. I just feel like I should have gone instead. It feels so unfair that I have no one and he had so many people and all those people at his funeral, you, Ron, George, there were so many people who miss him and so many relatives. It would have been easier for everyone if it was me." He choked out between heaving breaths, throat tightening with each word. She squeezed him harder before pulling away. 

"My dear sweet boy. If you think for one second we wouldn't feel the same way if it was you, then I haven't been as obvious as I thought. You are just as important to this family as any. I don't want to hear anything of the sort ever again. You deserve to be here as much as the rest of us." She said firmly, swatting him on the arm with a frown on her face before drawing him back in. 

"I'm so sorry for your loss, Mrs Weasley." Harry finally whispered when his breathing evened out.

They sat there until the sun went down and he lit the garden lights with his wand that was shoved in his back pocket. Mrs Weasley spoke first.

"So what are you going to do next?"

He heaved a great sigh. "I have no clue." he said. "The prophecy's been completed. There's no great plan for me anymore. I don't have a home anymore and I don't know who I am anymore either. I've spent my whole life with someone trying to kill me. I'm the Boy who Lived. I've done that twice now. I'm wandering around numb or crying and I have no idea what I'm supposed to do now I don't have a purpose anymore." His words hung in the air. He watched the trees wave in the gentle wind.

"It's ok to feel unbearably lost, Harry." 

He started to cry again. "Merlin, how am I still crying?" he cried out. "Isn't there nothing left? What's left of me to give? I've given everything for 17 years, my home, my life, my friends, my parents, what's left?" Mrs Weasley wrapped her arms back around him, her hand stroking his hair soothingly. 

"I don't know what's next and I'm so scared. There was always another year of school waiting or something involving Voldemort. I don't know what I'm supposed to do now both those things are gone." He said against her neck. She pulled away from him again and wiped his face with a cloth she _accio_'d to them. 

"Why don't you go find out?" She asked him. He stared at her, confused and sniffing. He blew his nose on the cloth. "What do you mean?" He asked.

"Go. Go find yourself. Go see the world. I know you have enough money to get by and I know Ron and Hermione need to go anyway to find her parents in Australia, as much as it hurts me to say or think about. Go travel, go meet people and find new things. Arthur and I never got to do that because we knew what we wanted. If there's nothing here left for you, go find something. Now I know that's not what you meant," She said with a hand up as he started to protest, "But you have never been just Harry before, and you won't be able to here, not here where everyone knows your life story from one look at your face. So you take that son of mine and Hermione and go. Go find what it is you're missing and if what you're missing is right here, it'll be waiting for you when you get back."

He sat there, stumped. "Just leave? Just like that? Won't people think I'm just running away?" he wondered.

"Of course they will, my dear. People think what they want and you can't change that. What matters is what you think of yourself and you may very well be running, but I have a feeling that this time it's not from something, but rather towards it. Everyone in this family needs to heal, Harry. That includes you, and no one in this family has suffered as much as you for as long. You need to allow yourself to heal, and you can't do that here."

She wiped her eyes a final time and stood up, extending her hand to him. "Come now, it's cold and I'd rather be inside." He allowed her to pull him to his feet and linked arms with her again as she lead them to the house. Just before the door, she suddenly stopped and turned to him, hands coming up to fix his collar. 

"Now, young man, if you do go traipsing across the globe, you must promise me to stay safe and come back to me one day, ok? I want to hear all about what my son Harry's doing in all the exciting places he goes and I will beat you with my spoon if I find out you've done something reckless in some far off land, you hear me? I will not have some son of mine act a fool and get himself hurt. Understand?" 

His heart leapt to his throat and lodged itself there. He slowly nodded.

"Ok Mum." 

She gave him a warm smile and patted his cheek before dragging him through the door and planting him at the huge table. While she prepared dinner he sat and watched his family flit around him, the room as hot as a summer's day.

His hands don't shake.

**Author's Note:**

> mrs weasley is the best and harry potter needs a mum figure im sorry for the crying 
> 
> title from "Perservere" by Gang of Youths, one of the worlds most beautiful songs no exaggeration pls listen to them
> 
> thanks sam for validating me also harry has darker skin i kind of see him as south asian like thai, cambodian or indian you feel??? and has the cool scar concept the one that looks like real lightning not the emoji. if u dont vibe with dark skinned harry idk imagine luna as like deathly pale
> 
> lunas lunch is my breakfast of fruit toast with vegemite and the Muldjewangk are a real Australian Aboriginal magical creature this is still Aboriginal land  
sovereignty was never ceded


End file.
